The company's free beta of OpManager On-Demand is a service that enables customers to manage servers, desktops, and applications just as they would with the company's on-premise application.

ManageEngine also owns the Zoho office, collaboration, and CRM services, and the company is hoping to tap into similar success with its array of network management products. Girish Mathrubootham, a vice president at ManageEngine, said that Zoho passed the 1 million users milestone last year and "is still seeing more and more people come onboard every day."

To that end, Mathrubootham says that throughout 2009, and likely into the future, the company will continue making more of its management applications available via SaaS. Within two months or so, ManageEngine will launch a service desk offering that will provide asset tracking and lifecycle management, he added.

"We also have plans to offer customers an option to move data from the cloud to on-premise, or vice-versa, if they want," Mathrubootham explained. "That could be a next logical step."

Indeed, analysts at IDC's Cloud Computing Forum this week said that among the chief concerns IT shops express about the model are security, interoperability, and choosing a host that won't go out of business during this recession.